UBCIC mobilizes the Constitution Express

Posted by Ryan Vandecasteyen-1sc on January 11, 1981

Trainloads of Indigenous people travel from BC to Ottawa to lobby Trudeau and the Premiers to guarantee Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination in the Canadian Constitution. In the end, Canada passes the Canada Constitution Act, 1982 recognizing “existing aboriginal and treaty rights” (Section 35). Three years later, after a series of unsuccessful First Ministers’ Conferences, the task of defining Aboriginal Rights is left to the Canadian courts.